Lisa Niver's Blog: We Said Go Travel, page 339
January 14, 2015
Thank You: The unfiltered soul of Bengaluru, India
Thank you, Bangalore, for your gentle blue skies as invigorating as a cup of filter coffee; your occasionally blushing sun; your fragrant rains from a refreshing sprinkle to ruinous raging downpours; and, your visually arresting cloudscapes like slow-moving frescoes painted on the sky.
Thank you for your vibrance; houses painted in pastel orange, purple, green, yellow, like a perennial Holi. Your trucks like speeding carnivals embracing “Horn OK please”, trumpeting colourful noises and transporting anything from potatoes to the population of a small village, standing room only. Your neon signs peppering my walks, jewel-like vegetables heaping on roadside carts. Your people radiantly draped in flowing embroidered fabrics no matter their occupation or means. You wear art and personality on a daily basis, and remind me that dressing elegantly is an act of self-respect; like hand sanitiser against the germs of dirt, disease, sweat, mud, and “the municipality has cut the water again”; psychological armour in the daily battle of inequality, discrimination, and so much discrepancy that it becomes the air you breathe.
I arrived in an unfamiliar city, alone with one suitcase, among news headlines of six-year-olds being raped at school. Bangalore, you shattered my faith in humanity, then rebuilt it stronger from all the good souls I encountered. Thank you for following up with a citywide protest against sexual violence. One of my first adventures here was walking through the streets of a slightly shady neighbourhood to find a place to live by the end of the week, knocking on the doors of buildings with signs for “Ladies Paying Guests” and calling phone numbers on flyers nailed to trees.
Thank you for leading me to Kammanahalli, a livelier and safer neighbourhood. In exchange for a longer daily commute in the notorious Bangalore traffic, I got to live among streets chock-full of the most exciting and diverse restaurants (both sit-down and stand-up), bakeries and quirky cafes, and street food stands like the repurposed auto rickshaw that sold ninety-nine varieties of freshly prepared dosas. Here I met waiters who matched my gastronomical curiosity with amused patience, explaining the anatomy of each idli and mithai, fiercely protective aunties who could ride bikes wearing saris, and roommates who had come from all over India to study accounting or fashion design, practise interior design, or work night shifts at call centres, but knew how to conjure up a view of Paris from the rooftop.
Thank you for letting me maunder in your streets just like your cows. I hit the ground running, eager to experience life as it is, and stumbled until I learned to traverse the obstacle course of cracked pavement, sleeping dogs and sometimes people, deadly potholes, strange puddles and unidentifiable debris. This path has its ups and downs, in the literal sense. I learnt the best aperture size for the window of a bus or car to catch the wind, the sights and sounds (no need in an auto rickshaw, because it’s all windows -in a monsoon shower, it is like riding Disney’s Splash Mountain sans seatbelts). The only way to cross a thirteen-lane fast-flowing river of screaming traffic that never stops for a light. I am no sheltered princeling, but my immunity is now steel-reinforced by seeing floating ants in my drinking water, losing power for hours at a time and finding myself alone on a completely unlit street at night, and flicking a diverse zoo of insects off my face while falling asleep at night.
Solitary travel is the ultimate freedom: the unfiltered exposure, the chance encounters, conversations where you might not share a single common language, but you open up more because you will never see each other again. It is also frustratingly limiting when you are a girl in India -even in safe times and places, you get piercing stares from people that try to peel your skin off with their eyes. When your natural tendency is to smile at strangers, it is painful but necessary to project suspicion on everyone you encounter. Somehow, I still made friends of strangers. I knew one person when I came to Bangalore, and I left with special connections to a diverse and unusual set of people that helped make this place a home for me, who opened their hearts to me despite the looming expiry date on my stay.
Thank you, Bangalore, for the kind-eyed bus conductors; wonderful co-workers; the Japanese ladies I befriended on the street entirely by chance and found to be the mirror reflections of my cultural formula; the auto rickshaw drivers that shared life advice, the warmhearted and generous people who became extensions of my family. Thank you for your genuine vibes of people just fighting to live their lives; I have never felt closer to the heartthrob of humanity.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
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#LuxeExperience: Making Chocolate Souffle with Chef Olivier
#LuxeExperience: Making Chocolate Souffle with Chef Olivier
Chef Olivier taught me to make a Chocolate Souffle at Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel! I enjoyed being in the kitchen with him and learning about using the best chocolate. We talked about moderation and choosing top experiences.
I have been fortunate to stay at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel as well as the Luxe Rodeo Drive Hotel. Please enjoy
all my videos from Luxe Experience Hotels: which include the Spa at Luxe Sunset Boulevard, an incredible suite at Luxe Sunset Boulevard, the penthouse at Luxe Rodeo Drive Hotel and learning to make special “Beverly Hills 90210″ cocktails on Rodeo Drive!
As the website states: “Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel’s fashionably designed choice for Bel Air dining, On Sunset, presents the celebrated cuisine of Executive Chef Olivier Rousselle. Known for discriminating taste, our menus feature seasonal California fare with a splash of French influence, making us a standout among Bel Air restaurants. Bel Air fine dining is available al fresco on the comfortable and luxurious patio or indoors in the main dining room. Dine with us and experience one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles.” I loved my dinner and have a video just of the special choices that Chef Olivier sent to me. Let them eat cake
VIDEO: Chef Olivier’s Chocolate Souffle at Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel
A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Dec 19, 2014 at 3:49pm PST
Chocolate soufflé with chocolate fudge sauce and ice cream. Oh la la! #luxury #dessert #LosAngeles @luxesunsetblvdhotel A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Dec 20, 2014 at 11:22am PST
Enjoy your #LosAngeles #luxury #staycation @luxesunsetblvdhotel by the pool! I love the cabanas!
A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Dec 22, 2014 at 3:13pm PST
The post #LuxeExperience: Making Chocolate Souffle with Chef Olivier appeared first on We Said Go Travel.
January 13, 2015
“THIS INSPIRES ME TO REMAIN THE DEMIGOD I BECAME”
“THIS INSPIRES ME TO REMAIN THE DEMIGOD I BECAME”
Each summer, before my college graduation, I had always joined the geology students in my school on their fieldtrips. On one occasion, I had the opportunity of enjoying the company of some legion men, a group of ex-service men from my country’s National Defense Academy (NDA) who offered to watch over us while they do their field research, those men were old NDA boys passing on the DNA of good doing to youths.
Because I had nothing to bother about, like finding rock specimens and identifying them as do the incubating geologists and geographers, I followed a schedule that suited me best. I stayed more with the legion men – running errands for them. In the mornings we went hunting, its usually an adventure – once a python frightened us, once we ran into a fox, once a team member got injured but we always come back with a big animal.
At nights, I stayed with the old soldiers watching over the students, we roasted and dressed the bush meat. As we sat at meat, they told me stories of some heroes of humanitarianism. A hero, Raoul Wallenberg stood out in my mind. He went to Hungary, hungry of justice and mercy for other men. He was caught and taught the music of tyranny. His mission halted and never resumed again. “This righteous gentile did not see Jews or Christians on the Nazi’s death trains but fellow human beings being led to slaughter by monster of pure evil”.
But why waste or die for people who didn’t even know you exist? This is the question, travelling in my service year answered. Then I understood what great men spend their lives on. Wallenberg spent his life willing to die, he wanted to die, but for something, not for nothing. His death made me think I should focus more on paying the price rather than getting the prize, but the opportunity didn’t come until I travelled for my national youth service course.
In my service year, I travelled to “Small London”, a grand name for a mountainous small town with beautiful sceneries in the Western Nigeria, Efon-Alaaye, but so called for its characteristic coldness. It was wonderful meeting other youths living together like siblings. We worshipped together. We did endurance trek up the mountain of Golgotha, a place of prayer in Efon-Alaaye. I saw lovers held each other hand walking, talking, laughing and stealing lovely look at each other. Then we were at the mountaintop, I saw the entire world from there, we took photo shots, it was hair-raising, I stood as though I would fly, I marveled at the wonders of God.
It was a family of youths, closely knitted into one, it was one big family– very big to accommodate you but small enough to know you – persons and personalities weren’t drowned out in the crowd. One of the new corps members confessed: “I almost cried, the warmness of the welcome; imagine your seniors running to carry your luggage, as though you are anything…” The love indeed added some sense of importance to my sense of responsibility throughout my service year. I will not forget the Nigerian Christian Corpers Fellowship. They triggered the Wallenberg in me – I began to see all men as one.
Being a Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Corper, I went to invite men to fall in love with their destinies. You see, travelling usually present an offer – the privilege of changing status, because nobody knows you in your new destination, you are made to re-create your picture, you choose who you wants to be and that’s why people often find greener pastures easily in alien lands. I seize the opportunity to manifest the life-changer in me, I showed men and women the path out of poverty, ignorance and disease, we trained them on skills, got them loans and they started. Then we were with school boys and girls, we created incentives for intellectual masturbation, initiated intellectual intercourse and allowed the Titans and Spartans to clash in intra-/inter-school debates, quiz and writing competitions. The result was surprising, it gave me a new cause and meaning for life, you become a demigod when you see your life change despondent and destitute lives to happy and healthy lives. This inspires me to remain the demigod I became. Today as I travel round the world preaching the gospel of God’s love, it been wonderful being on mission with men and women whose joy lays in the joys they created in other people. I get inspiration serving for nothing, creating something in lives of people, than been served. This makes me feel more responsible and important – what a sweet omnipotence of love created by the omnipresence allowed by my traversing climes.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
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InterContinental Los Angeles: Where the World Meets
InterContinental Los Angeles: Where the World Meets
I really enjoyed my stay at this lovely hotel. My room was a recently renovated Studio Suite and I captured a great sunset on the balcony. Enjoy my videos of the great breakfast buffet and the amazing spa. The lobby was all decked out for holiday and a large wedding was taking place in the ballroom. Close to Century City, Westwood and Beverly Hills this is a great hotel choice in Los Angeles!
A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Jan 5, 2015 at 11:38am PST
VIDEO: InterContinental Los Angeles January 2015
Stay in style @interconla newly renovated “The Studio Suite” #sunset on the private balcony with skyline views! Two flat screen tvs and a workstation. #LosAngeles #InterContinental A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Jan 4, 2015 at 4:20pm PST
VIDEO: Breakfast Buffet at InterContinental Los Angeles
A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Jan 4, 2015 at 8:13pm PST
Ready to relax? @interconla #pool with a view and central too! Steps from great art and shopping. Okay a few blocks! #InterContinental #LosAngeles city #staycation A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Jan 4, 2015 at 10:05am PST
A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Jan 4, 2015 at 9:53am PST
Classic 1967 @Porsche! Stay #classy @InterConla #LosAngeles #InterContinental #Porsche A photo posted by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Jan 4, 2015 at 12:08pm PST
VIDEO: InterContinental Spa
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Denmark: Hamlet and I
Kronborg castle, with its boardwalk suicide ghosts that wear nostalgia as mourning dress- that was where Hamlet and I grew up.
I came back to the country that had given us refuge during the war. Denmark with its warmth emanating mirages in the middle of winter, those stuffed date stands along the Strøget in Copenhagen, its technicolour sailor’s district and always blossoming frost bitten flower pots. But Kronborg had no warmth. I was smashed and hurled about by a torrential downpour at the port town of Helsingor. I was lashed at by Danish winds like whips, stripping me raw, chipping at my exposed face that was bunching up all swollen with the pain, raindrops dripping along all the wrinkles and folds of my skin. Every breath of air exacerbating the swelling flesh, every gust a nightmare from which I couldn’t escape. I was looking for somewhere to hide, all alone on the miserable trip I made to the city of my childhood. Lonely because it is lonely to wake up each morning and to try, it is lonely to facilitate a recovery that never comes, to grin and to bear it and know that that is the best you can do, in uncomfortable hostel beds the same as wrapped in your own too-familiar sheets.
It was a lonely thought that drove me here, that maybe if I travelled to where I remember last being happy I’d find some profound joy here, or even that my having travelled so much would imbue me with some way to recreate it, that happiness. This was the place of my memories, the ones that sustained me, from before I figured out my father’s post-traumatic stress disorder and before my mother’s paranoia deepened. Their war-afflicted mental maladies that had coloured my upbringing, and were draining me in adulthood. When I’d left for Denmark I’d been desperate for a solution that would save them. And myself.
Drying my gloves, I kept on trying, having chai and some sneaky dry biscuits (that I’d lifted from the hostel’s free 7am breakfast spread and kept in my pocket) at a sailor’s café until it was obscene for me to stay any longer with only my cappuccinos. I proceeded cold and wet to miserable Kronborg, haunted by its boardwalk suicides. A medieval thing in the dead of winter, and I thinking that I would find joy there. My parents took me there as a child and, though it was a grey and silent place, I remembered laughing with them.
I wandered for hours ascribing meaning to the tablecloths and the tapestries. But I did not find profound means to happiness there. It wasn’t what I’d needed anyway. Just like a warm dry hiding place free from the onslaught of the wind, piercing through my flesh that turned so numb I couldn’t feel the snot dribble down it, I needed a respite. Respite from the onslaught was not weakness, it made me stronger to rejuvenate. The stronger for having suffered it, the wind and the enervating lifetime of struggle that is coping with mental illness. Kronborg was no tragedy if one read it right.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
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January 12, 2015
Urban Dweller in Kenya
There was no mistaking the intent behind that glare, the blaze of a malicious death-ray.
We had inadvertently got between her, on the trail, and her baby on the riverbank, a regrettable error in the southern Kenya bush.
She scanned our little group, stolidly selecting the one she intended to grasp in those giant jaws and smash to death.
I thought I caught her bloodshot eye, and in that millisecond my universe shrank to a 25-foot bubble containing only our ten safari walkers, this steamed-up hippopotamus, and two Rigby .416 big-game rifles trained on her head.
Hippos are the stuff of childhood lore, of course. We’ve cuddled them as jolly rotund bedtime toys, and tittered at them in their darling pink tutus, pirouetting to Dance of the Hours in Disney’s “Fantasia”.
But a hippo is neither adorable nor funny; it is 3500 pounds of pure evil-temper, with a 2-foot wide gape sporting foot-long tusks, and a 20-mph top speed. Hippos are the most deadly animals in Africa, killing more humans per year than all other wild creatures combined.
Lajori and Ouashi, our keen Samburu spear-bearers, corralled us backward into the surrounding scrub. Tiny wait-a-bit thorns and two-inch acacia spikes began redecorating my new vacation shirt, polka-dots of red leaking into yellow fabric.
I imagined I could hear a background roar… the muffled hammering of ten hearts on fight-or-flight alert. My mouth had gone cotton-dry; I’d have given anything for one sip from my water bottle.
She had been glowering, seemingly forever, feet wide-spaced and head lowered. Now she swayed slightly, about to step forward. We heard soft clicks, as Iain and Muhammad released the safeties on those Rigbys.
Our whole world went silent. The tropical sun broiled us.
I considered my bizarre time-space-warp. Three days before, I had been playing with my Corgi in our Denver yard. This morning I was standing 9000 miles east, at the Equator, beside a mildly-reeking cylinder of elephant dung the size of a stew-pot, anticipating some sort of cataclysm. Oh, the miracles of modern travel!
The “river horse” blinked.
All that time she must have been calculating the odds. The fierce sun was becoming intolerable; natural red sunscreen oozed from her skin. Her baby was grunting, softly, down by the water. She decided it was too risky for her to try reducing these invaders to jelly. So she shrugged and turned away toward safety.
I swear… that hippo shrugged. After hitting the trail again, finally relaxing a couple of miles downstream, we felt reassured but not yet quite able to take it all in. On an upbeat note, as we walked I couldn’t help but wonder (silently) how hippopotamus steak might taste.
That afternoon, rounding a clump of saltbush, we came upon a lone, 9-foot long, 400-pound, mane-less male Tsavo lion, posing regally, directly in our path… a heart-grabbing story for another time!
We’d traveled from civilization to one of the last places on earth where one can don boots and tramp a hundred miles through the bush. The only vestiges of humanity were ancient burial mounds. We were in the wildest of wilderness. Even the path we trod was made not by human feet, but by elephants, cape buffalos, hippos, leopards. We were trekking game trails at the middle of the globe. That’s freedom.
I felt profound gratitude walking that ground in much the same fashion as our most ancient human ancestors. We’ve read it in history, anthropology or religious books, but we can’t know it until we’re standing under an acacia tree watching an elephant scratching his hide on a doum palm 40 yards away. I was an urban dweller finding my origins.
The march included periodic breaks. At each one, I surveyed the landscape’s wonders: acacia trees and saltbush, teeming birds, multitudes of unrestrained wildlife. I’d never felt this free, even though I was confined to a band of people under strict instructions to maintain quiet and order – no camera beeps, no talking, no sudden moves, please.
Those ‘ancients’ had walked in little bands too, but they were shrewd armed hunters and they knew how to survive. I had no weapon; I was stripped bare as an infant in the primeval forest. I was just grateful to go with a sunhat, water bottle, camera, and come out alive.
It had been a long first day of the Tsavo adventure. I was 73 – the oldest person to have done this trip – and still a bit unfit for 10-mile-a-day hikes in the equatorial blast furnace.
But after eleven more days on the trail, I felt undeniably stronger — more alive, fit, and free. I went home with fresh perspective on the world, with renewed purpose, and with hopes to someday re-visit Kenya’s breathtaking bush and its emboldening creatures.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
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Where is my map to the world?
I don’t know how I ended up in Narita airport that night, curled up by the window using my Jansport as a pillow and trying to find rest while a night janitor vacuumed not far away. I remember staring, fully awake, past the hum of jet engines to what I knew was the skyline of Tokyo, and a nightlife just getting started. I was leaving Japan that night. I would be in Bangkok by morning. The blue lights of the runway winked at me out of time. I had bought a ticket in an senseless state, and was still baffled that my spontaneous decision had real consequences. I had no destination or purpose in Thailand; no work to do, or sites to see. I didn’t even have a map. But that didn’t really matter—I can’t read them.
I was working in Tokyo at the time, but I wanted to get away. I needed a vacation from Japan, which had become stifling and rigid for me as I repeated the same routine everyday. So one evening after work, as I lounged in front of my laptop with a few Asahi beers, I found myself staring at yet another booking site. I imagined a beach where James Bond solved international crime, a place where curry was so spicy your ears sweat, a country where massages were practically free and drinks were sipped from coconuts. With one click of my mouse, I spent two paychecks on a red-eye flight from Tokyo to Bangkok.
Slowly, it began to sink in—now I would actually have to go to this strange place. I was exhausted from trying to live in Japan, to fit in and look like its customs came naturally to me. And now I was headed into yet another culture, vastly different from the Western one I grew up in.
But as I booked my way to Bangkok that night, I felt another sensation, one that had nothing to do with the empty beer cans by my computer. I felt wild and brave, calm and confident, energized and optimistic. It was a heady cocktail of hope, mixed with strength, splashed with curiosity. I had lost my wits, and been handed a set of new ones. Though fleeting, I wanted more of this feeling.
For many years I repeated the same impulsive pattern, booking flights spontaneously in search of that ephemeral feeling. Since then I have woken up in a lot of new cities, guided by nothing more than my anticipation for the new and undiscovered. I have wriggled my toes in sand from ten different countries. I have eaten all the local delicacies that don’t squirm as I swallow them. I’ve single-handedly kept the coffee industry alive by buying flat whites and long blacks at every cafe that dare have WiFi. I’ve held my camera up in front of the things they tell me I should, and I press the button that shows everyone “been there, done that.” But still, I haven’t had a good handle upon the feeling I chase for longer than a moment. It is elusive, jumping just ahead out of grasp.
And so I search the corners of this world for where it might be waiting for me—permanently. I know what I’m looking for, and I am certain it is waiting in a new city I haven’t yet been. I imagine stepping into its central square and, like a plug finding a socket, I am filled with an energy that illuminates my full potential. I bend down and kiss the cobblestone and spend the rest of my life thanking this place for being here, for waiting for me, for being perfect for me.
Even though I booked a red-eye to Thailand, I never found much sleep that night. As I watched the sun rise over Bangkok beneath the wing of that 747, eating rice porridge that didn’t taste entirely awful, it was there—the feeling. It was the transient, electrifying awareness I longed to find for good. I didn’t know it then, but in that airplane hurtling for a southeast Asian paradise I had found my place.
I am there when I peer out of windows that overlook a fresh set of streets I’ve never seen. I am aboard trains and planes, buses and ferry-boats, cars and trollies. I am pulling in, sailing away, touching down, screeching to a halt. I am without a map, or an umbrella, or the proper currency. I am wandering without a destination. I am energized, but I am serene; humbled and at peace.
I am strong.
I am hopeful.
I am moving.
I am lost, but I am wending my way around—even if I can’t find it on a map.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
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January 11, 2015
Natures Good Side in Australia
After three days of constant packing, driving, and roadside camping, I was relieved to make a longer than usual stop in Byron Bay, a famous beachside town on Australians east coast. Slowly, my girlfriend and I had journeyed up from Sydney, stopping at Forster and Coffs Harbour along the way for a night before our arrival. With the surfboard strapped to the roof of the car and the backseat rammed with blankets, guitars and camping equipment, we cruised toward the town in the early hours of the evening and watched young local’s parade around the streets on their custom made skateboards in board shorts and tie-dye singlets. Young backpackers with stylish nose piercings and homemade dreadlocks sat roadside, busking their favorite Bob Marley tunes whilst friendly neighborhood dogs laid outside boutique shops, panting with a mild look of fatigue on their faces.
A sign reads ‘Welcome to Byron Bay: Cheer up, Slow Down, Chill Out’, inviting us in with warmth and hospitality as we made our way closer to the coast, bumping along the road that was littered with deep potholes. We pulled up to a campsite at the back end of town and found a small spot before making our way to the beach for the final hours on sunlight. In the twilight haze, birds could be heard singing in unison amongst the lush green flora whilst a few dedicated beachgoers made the most of the remaining surf, paddling out on their long boards to glide along the mellow humps of rolling water that gently crashed into quiet white bubbles. Beyond the perfectly formed waves the ocean sat almost perfectly still, reflecting the orange glow of sunset which shimmered all the way to the horizon. From this bronze haze, spouts of water rose to the sky, revealing a group of humpback whales that breached the surface at steady intervals; the weight of their huge bodies crashed down into the water and could be heard from the shore. Not far from us, a surfer catches a wave and rides it all the way to the shore, walking to the nose of the board and back in peaceful nature before dropping of the side. Just as the sun was setting, a pod dolphins turn up and play with the boarders in the surf, cruising alongside them and leaping out the waves with incredible agility. The frantic journey up to Byron had been worth it for this brief little moment.
Strolling along in the ankle deep water and watching the incredible display of serenity, the two of us held each other closely and uttered not a single word as night crept in on the warm coastal winds. I can’t describe how grateful I was right then, for her and for us, for life and for the journey, for those whales and those dolphins, for the surf and the surfers, for Byron Bay and for Australia, for nature and for that beautiful moment it revealed a peaceful side to us that some don’t ever to witness.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
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Under Skies Without End Over Vilnius, Lithuania
Under Skies Without End: Hot Air Ballooning Over Vilnius, Lithuania
The fields glow in the late evening sun, bathed in Northern latitude light, buzzing with energy as small groups find their places near large baskets that look far too heavy to be lifted into the air, especially laden with a half dozen passengers each. Fires ignite noisily, unexpectedly, around us, in random bursts. The popping sounds are alarming. They make us jump and giggle with anticipation as we prepare to be lifted over the Vilnius skyline.
It feels almost as if we are congregating for some tribal ritual connected to Lithuania’s ancient past, gathering around bonfires in honor of Midsummer’s Eve to sing medieval folk songs. Lithuanians still root themselves deeply in their traditions, despite a drawn-out Soviet occupation which threatened to wipe them out.
We board the basket enthusiastically, helping each other over the edge. I am the only American in our small group, welcomed heartily into the fold after the Lithuanian sightseers learn that I speak their language, though far from perfectly. I was brought up in a family which emigrated from Lithuania just before the entire nation was annexed, literally wiped off the map for half a century. Since then, through sheer determination, Lithuania has endured painful transitions, boldly reasserted its independence, and evolved into a charming, picturesque nation of just under three million citizens that still lies well off the beaten path of many travelers.
Perhaps because of my foreign status, the other five passengers take an extra protective role with me, reassuring me to be calm, even though I am the least nervous in the group, with the exception of the pilot and a friendly, elderly gentleman who I learn is taking this balloon ride to celebrate his seventieth birthday. He is traveling with his son, who is about my age.
This far north, the summer sun lingers, casting a magical glow over the landscape. As we ascend, first over tall grass, then over bushes and treetops, and finally, over buildings, city blocks, entire hives of human activity, we become quiet and reverent. Vast swaths of green surround the city. The Neris river slices it in two. Baroque churches line winding, cobblestone streets in Old Town Vilnius. We can hear the echo of their bells tolling from our perch in the wide blue sky far above their belfries.
I think about how much had to change in the world for this to be possible. When I was a kid, a teenager even, the Iron Curtain was an impenetrable barrier. This entire nation was occupied territory, closed off from the rest of the world and impossible to visit. No one got in or out. I couldn’t just come and go as I pleased, couldn’t come see relatives, couldn’t sit with them and pore through photo albums, eat hearty Lithuanian food, rich with potato dough and dumplings and mushrooms. Now things are different. Sometimes it almost feels like that time in our past is a bad dream. But we don’t forget. And we are grateful for the now.
The two hour ride passes far too fast. The treetops grow closer and closer as we descend. The elderly man touches my shoulder. He tells me how much he enjoyed his birthday gift. I can’t tell if it’s the still bright sun causing his eyes to water of if he is tearing up.
I just never thought I would see it, he says.
He turns and admires the view as we near the fields.
His son makes sure his father’s back is turned, then says to me in a low voice.
He’s glad to see that you’ve come back to Lithuania, to see your relatives, to see where you come from.
I don’t know what to say so I just nod.
My father doesn’t like to talk about it, but he went to Siberia during the war.
I understand what this means. This kind, elderly man, with the sun on his face, smiling as we land safely on the ground, was likely sent to a labor camp, where he spent years simply struggling to stay alive, to keep his spirit from withering. His return to Lithuania is miraculous. His survival something he never would have believed possible. And now Lithuania is free again. He can fly above this city and know that when he lands, he’s safe.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
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January 10, 2015
Miracle of the forest in India
From Mumbai we were travelling towards southern part of India. Krishna was driving the car. The Konkan way consists of one of the most amazing and beautiful roads for a peaceful journey. In some places the roads and rail lines run together and kiss each other and then separate to different direction. After Panvel, we were truly enjoying the road side green forests, mountain ranges, plains, crossing rivers, small springs, and green paddy villages. We crossed several Nagara (Indian temples are mainly in two architectural styles one is Tanjore style and other is Nagara style) architecture style temples.Our trip was beautiful as we could relate all the aesthetic cultural thoughts and ideas with the journey. In-between we stopped and had some hot tea,coffee,vadapav and delicious ‘dosai’ to fuel ourselves.
From Mumbai we were travelling towards southern part of India. Krishna was driving the car. The Konkan way consists of one of the most amazing and beautiful roads for a peaceful journey. In some places the roads and rail lines run together and kiss each other and then separate to different direction. After Panvel, we were truly enjoying the road side green forests, mountain ranges, plains, crossing rivers, small springs, and green paddy villages. We crossed several Nagara (Indian temples are mainly in two architectural styles one is Tanjore style and other is Nagara style) architecture style temples.Our trip was beautiful as we could relate all the aesthetic cultural thoughts and ideas with the journey. In-between we stopped and had some hot tea,coffee,vadapav and delicious ‘dosai’ to fuel ourselves.
After the most beautiful Karvar beach, in Karnataka, somehow we lost the state high way and entered in to a forest road. We didn’t know where we were going. After droving for a while , the way was shrinking and the road was thinning into a small path. We stopped the car, examined the surroundings, could hear sweet chirping voices from everywhere. The collage sound contains the rippling river which is crossing the slim road where we were halted our car. The smell of the forest, oh my goodness, it really was giving us a very new life. The nature had cast off all my stress which I was carrying for a very long time. I wet my legs in the small thin river, guess it is starting from there. It was the moment I reached a sort of Zen state. We didn’t know where to go; we cannot take a reverse from there as the path was extremely narrow. One side a big slope which might touch the valley below it.
But Krishna made it real, he reversed the car within the very small rectangular place, like a magician.We drove again through the beautiful forest which was slowly merging into the dusky orange tinges. He came to another which we never came across before; but it was a village road which headed to udupi, again a breezy consoling journey.
We asked the way wherever we saw someone. They were core farmers, not interested to leave their village boundaries. The darkness was competing with us too. We finally decided to give way to the darkness to overtake us. We discussed with some elderly villagers, the interesting thing was that nobody knew about any hotel there. So they decided to accommodate us in one of their houses. I was too excited. We went to one of the villagers place and made ourselves comfortable in the available space. They gave us maize roti (bread made of maize,) and ragi porridge. With some local spinach dry curry. Heartily delicious with their love and care. We went to deep sleep that night which was celebrating its triumph on us with its maximum darkness. We were sleeping outside the house, which was a strange and a new experience for me. Initially I had some unidentified fear but soon the soothing darkness and the fragranced breeze made me slip into deep sleep. A very different voice woke me up, the time was early dawn. when the leaves are getting its first green color with the first day light… I saw a silhouette of a big beaked bird, flapping its wings and trying to sit properly. I woke up, I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was the great Malabar hornbill. What am I seeing, a very rare bird which is the very native of the western ghat monsoon rain forest? It was there for some time and then flew away with its partner into the reddish golden sky. We thanked the villagers and resumed our journey from there. On the way we saw many horn bills. It was an unforgettable life time experience for me. But the beauty of the journey was that were in a shortcut road to Mangalore and reached below the famous Mookaambika temple.
We reached fast, but with so many strange experiences. I cannot forget the healing power of forest. The great Malabar hornbill, which is in the extinct list of the forest birds due to the scarcity of its natural habitats. We are not at all thinking about their right to live in this planet. A lovely unforgettable journey by the Konkan mountain road from Mumbai to Kerala .
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